lake qargha

fiona + i went to lake qargha on saturday for hiking. we were accompanied by her psd, sadat, a v. fine + incredibly patient young man from panjshir.




signs of qargha's role in the mujaheddin wars were everywhere.








an illicit gravesite. sadat explained that it is against islam to create markers for the dead, but apparently, someone did.




the little birds outta their gilded cages for awhile!




this jet ski was a bit of a surprise, but i was comforted to recognize its universality.




a boy and his father rode up on beautiful horses. he was disappointed when i declined to take a spin. i love them, but the horse-human relationship confuses me.





when i saw them do this later, i realized that it would be to my benefit to get over this equine power dynamic headtrip so that i may someday feel water being kicked up from under horse heels.

hashing, marastoon-style

last friday, the hash took place at a compound called marastoon, a bit outside of the city. beautiful views, + the hosts were wonderful people from the education/culture ngo, PARSA.



fiona + i arrived thinking that we would be setting out for another hiking adventure. instead, this "survivor hash" featured competitions. two teams were formed + given challenges, + those who did not show a winning spirit were traded with the other team or voted off entirely.

watching all of this take place was the amazing afghan fighting dog (still a puppy!), shariq. one of the people from marastoon rescued him when he was a baby. he is the most gentle dog you would ever hope to meet + a loyal best friend/protector of one of his co-habitants, a tiny kitten.



first up: catch, wash, henna, + decorate a goat. the team that finished first won, but there was a bonus for the goat voted by afghans to be the most beautiful. we won on the first count, but not the second. the goats were so patient!



here is our dear donkey unloading after he was burdened with breakable food items (eggs, tomatoes, etc.) + run through a long field (we won!).



sadly, i do not yet have photos of competition #3 (burqa races). v. v. v. difficult to run relays in a burqa, but we still triumphed.

round 4, kite flying, was a total bust. there was v. little wind + we couldn't keep the kites in air for more than a few seconds. following that debacle through which our afghan companions demonstrated smirking endurance, predictably, the kites were turned over to them + within a few minutes were high up there.



shariq was heartbroken not to be able to join us in the field.



the final round was too dumb to photograph + v. indicative of hash humor. relays with one person carrying a plunger (stick facing forward) between their legs + the other waiting with a roll of toilet paper (requiring plunging) between theirs. you get the picture. and yes, we won.

friday's hash was fiona's fifth, which meant that she had to be inducted as a hasher. the ladies argued vehemently that her hash name be "burqa down" (commemorating her spectacular burqaed fall in the relays + her valiant recovery).

one hasher went on an extended rant about the hometown of both fiona + kabubble spiritual advisor, dave mcmullin, claiming that fiona's hash name should imply a dig at her newton, massachusetts origins. however, with so few americans present, his joke fell flat. after way too much discussion, the hashers settled on "sucks him dry." poor dear.

catfancy

the cats of kabul are a wily bunch. there are multiple reports of them working in teams to break into fridges, to the point that both ladies i know who have adopted these badasses have to maintain their cold foods under lock + key.

most restaurants have at least a few cats, most of whom seem well-fed but who shore up meals through begging, just in case.

l'atmosphere's felines are particularly lovely + extraordinarily tame.

[l'atmo heartbreaker]

on friday, i met a tiny kitten whose best friend is a giant afghan fighting dog. so transfixed was i that i forgot even to take photos!

my desire here was to show you the beaucoup animals i met this past weekend, but that will have to wait until the internets are better. our power has been off and on all day, and the internets will again be giving up their ghosts any moment, i venture. xoxo

the citadel

herat's citadel has its origins in the time of alexander the great. it was employed as a site for war-making + imprisonment between the 14th and 20th centuries.

[prison corridor]

[an opening into the ancient world]

we were fortunate to have the place to ourselves after paying for an after-hours tour with a v. charming guard.

here, he demonstrates how the topmost windows were used . . .


three kites had been trapped within the citadel's high walls, and our guard rescued each + tried to relaunch them.



we spent a great deal of time discussing this section of ground. in the lower layers of the sediment, the rusty objects you see are gun shells from the afghan-british wars of the mid-late 1800s. the upper layers contain plastic used at some stage in the site's restoration. the gun shells were never removed and are integrated throughout the land. an archeologist's dream, + for me, yet another palimpsest.

[click above to enlarge - check out the shells!]

[wall construction detail]

[ceiling tile detail]

[an unusual + well-tended green patch within the walls of the citadel]

and, finally, i was able to upload the v. special citadel kite launch video!

photogallery

life has been busy lately! increasingly bursting out of the kabubble, thanks to kind friends.



still posting herat photos because there are so many interesting images!


worn out, but a lovely weekend!

revelations!

so. . . guess who was in the helicopter that almost hit my house + landed in the park a half block away?

that's right!

making a secret entrance, although i dunno how covert it was with all those backup 'copters circling around (although that explains them). maybe he was going to the parliament nearby? i prefer to think that he was going to the pelican cafe, well-known for their delicious soups + just re-opened from summer break. or, perhaps, the park itself was his destination. along with beautiful gardens, apparently it is a good place to score . . .



speaking of scoring, i also learned that it is, of course, the gardener who is responsible for those giant plants on the grounds of the kabul public library . . . his salary is so low that he has to find some means of generating income for himself. not understanding dari, i missed this critical detail the first time around.

survivor hash today! i will try to be mostly charming so's i don't get exiled! xoxo

friday mosque

herat's masjid-i-jami/friday mosque/blue mosque, built in the 13th century, is a stunner.



just look at the tilework. an historian friend who accompanied us to herat explained that these patterns are not unique to tile. the islamic world possesses great gifts in the area of mathematics, + they are reflected in these amazingly precise, symmetrical patterns that are used in everything from architectural elements to textiles. the patterns are so ubiquitous, so ingrained into the aesthetic sensibilities of craftspeople, that perhaps it is not even obvious to them that they are repeating designs.



the mosque maintains a tile workshop, where artisans enact painstaking restorations.





my friends, james + kunduz, who speak dari, attracted crowds of curious kids everywhere they went!


it was such an honor to be welcomed into this beautiful sacred space.

falling

[tile detail from mosjid-jamé/friday mosque/blue mosque of herat]

this morning, while skyping with one of my two west coast life coaches, our chatter was interrupted by increasingly loud helicopter sounds. over the internets, these noises resembled the buzzing of angry bees. suddenly, it became clear that a helicopter was about to land on my rooftop - the sound was excruciating + the wind nearly blew the glass out of our windows. when we ran onto our terrace to see what was going on, we were shocked to see a group of u.s. helicopters radiating around our home + from two doors down onward, dust + smoke completely obscuring the landscape. a bomb?

[unmasked eid celebrant w/toy gun]

our security company reported back about 5 minutes later than a u.s. helicopter had made an emergency landing within a 1/2 block of our house. we have the tallest building in these parts, + i think it nearly swiped us. ridiculously frightening!


[the workers are busy working]

chaos pursued en route to the german clinic. i was delighted to see three donkeys grazing by the roadside but was completely flummoxed as i watched one poor soul tumble into the v. deep drainage ditch! the driver pretended not to understand me when i cried for him to stop. happily, the dear donkey did manage to right himself + was left looking just a bit confused but not apparently too hurt to return to his grazing, which he was conveniently able to continue from his stance in the ditch.



[sweet friends]

the germans confirmed my self-diagnosis of h. pylori bacteria ("thousands + thousands of bacterias swimming in your stomach") + also said i have some sort of secondary infection, so i'm on 4 different antibiotics, oh my. i can't say that i'm surprised that there's something fishy going on . . . i was awakened this morning by a dream in which i was the new devotee of a religious leader who lived in an edible building resembling the taj mahal. as we approached the compound, one of my fellow devotees instructed me on my new job: "the leader has two dogs: care bear and care bear. they each need their own private time in the yard but also time together. you must manage this."

tia

i learned a new acronym from a student: tia (this is afghanistan), used mostly to describe the bewildering barrage of terrifying + hilarious moments that comprise life here . . .

take, for example, being a tourist in such a country. the lonely planet could use a little updating + perhaps a chapter on the life of a vegetarian in wartime (oof!).


more ubiquitous in herat than the burqa is the chador.



after a little too much grab-assing in the bazaar, i bought one. the standards of dress in herat are even more conservative than kabul - i was literally man-handled by an offended guy who happened not to appreciate the unobstructed view of my lower arm.



but the razor wire is cute - made to look like tree branches. even the birds are fooled.



the nazari hotel of herat


this photo was taken prior to the aforementioned grab-assing. you see the obvious problem with the sleeves, not to mention the immodest leggings.



and yet, heratis enjoy snooker.